POTTSVILLE, Pa. – March 11, 2017 – PRLog — Sunbury Press has released What Waits Beneath, Thomas Malafarina’s campy horror novel based in his native Schuylkill County harkening back to 1960s pulp classics.

About the Book:Thomas Malafarina’s first novel is set in 1965 in his native Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. A young boy is savagely disemboweled in the presence of his friends at an abandoned coal mine by an unidentified creature.

During the investigation, which follows, a Philadelphia television reporter learns from an eccentric old codger a terrible legend about the disastrous history of the mine – a tale about a mine disaster many years ago in which three coal miners were trapped a mile below the surface. Out of desparation, one of the miners sold his soul to Satan in order to get revenge for the disaster. In return, Satan transformed this man into an immortal soul-feeding demon that must remain trapped in the mine until he gathers ninety-nine souls.

How do you kill what can’t be killed? How do you stop the unstoppable? Welcome to a place where terror reigns, where unspeakable horror and demonic savagery is the norm; where lost souls writhe and struggle for a freedom that may never come. Welcome to Coogan’s mine; the home of Devil Dan.

About the Author:
Thomas M. Malafarina (www.ThomasMMalafarina.com) is an author of horror fiction from Berks County, Pennsylvania. To date he has published six horror novels “What Waits Beneath”, “Burner”, “Eye Contact” , “Fallen Stones”, “Dead Kill Book 1: The Ridge of Death” and “Dead Kill Book 2: The Ridge Of Change”. He has also published four collections of horror short stories; “Thirteen Deadly Endings”, “Ghost Shadows”, “Undead Living” and most recently “Malaformed Realities Vol. 1”. He has also published a book of often-strange single panel cartoons called “Yes I Smelled It Too; Cartoons For The Slightly Off Center”. All of his books are published through Sunbury Press.(www.Sunburypress.com).
In addition, many of the more than one hundred short stories Thomas has written have appeared in dozens of short story Anthologies and e-magazines. Some have been produced and presented for internet podcasts as well. Thomas is best known for the twists and surprises in his stories and his descriptive often gory passages have given him the reputation of being one who paints with words. Thomas is also an artist, musician, singer and songwriter.

Excerpt:
Dusk fell rapidly upon that dreary and overcast late summer day in August 1965. A disquietingly cool autumn breeze had begun to chill the air; a not so subtle forewarning of the inescapable approach of winter just a few months away. In the distance, black silt-covered hills cleaved their way through the earth stretching westward through the barren coalfields of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Elsewhere, the world was going through what was quite possibly one of the greatest cultural revolutions in its history. But here in this quiet place, time seemed to stand strangely still.

A winding dirt road snaked its way between the silt banks heading upward toward a plateau, which intersected a rising hillside. At its crest stood a rotting timber-framed doorway, once the entrance to a major coalmine, which had been abandoned more than a half century earlier.

A group of six young boys trudged purposefully up the access road toward the neglected mine. They stared at the rusted mine car rails which extended out from the yawning breach resembling the tongue of some nightmarish beast waiting to devour its unsuspecting prey. As they approached the former entrance to the mine, the boys involuntarily moved closer together forming a tighter cluster perhaps thinking that by doing so they might somehow shield themselves from whatever unknown evil the mine possessed. They had all heard and known the stories.

Near the entrance, a security light shown with an eerie amber glow from high atop a battered wooden electrical pole from which wires dangled loose and foreboding. Seven feet or so above the ground, rusted metal l-shaped footrests jutted out from the sides of the pole creating a staggered ladder pattern leading high upward toward its top. However, the climb upward seemed far too dangerous for any sane person to attempt. The tawny light faded in and out of intensity, indicating repairs to this particular fixture were long overdue and would likely never come. In the crimson setting sunlight and the golden glow of the diminishing lamplight the mouth of the mine resembled a gateway to Hell.

On the decomposing timber, which stretched across the crown of the entrance, hung a painted sign, worn and barely legible reading “Co ___ n’s Mine.” A menacing looking blood dripping handprint obscured the missing letters. Several similar handprints dappled the two worn wooden mine doors, both of which were likewise deteriorating and dangled precariously askew.

One by one, the members of the group pushed a younger boy by the name of Johnny Carter to the front of the line. The boy did everything in his power to try to project an air of false bravado, but upon seeing the moldering doors of the mine and the blackness, which loomed just a few feet in front of him, the child became overwrought with terror.

About the Book:
Not all stories have a “happy ending”. Sometimes the forces of evil are just too strong to allow the characters, whether protagonist or antagonist, to survive unscathed. Sometimes it is because of revenge or sinister forces or simply bad Karma. Welcome to “Thirteen Nasty Endings”, a collection of short horror stories by Thomas M Malafarina. In this disturbing world of terror and foreboding, virtually every story has the potential to end badly for someone. There will be no “happily ever afters” in this collection! This is definitely not a “feel good” compilation. Thirteen Deadly Endings guarantees that someone, whether deserving or not, will get it in the end. Thomas has put together an incredibly upsetting anthology of some of his most gory, horrifying, disturbing and bizarre tales for your reading pleasure.

About the Author:
Thomas M. Malafarina (www.ThomasMMalafarina.com) is an author of horror fiction from Berks County, Pennsylvania. To date he has published six horror novels “What Waits Beneath”, “Burner”, “Eye Contact” , “Fallen Stones”, “Dead Kill Book 1: The Ridge of Death” and “Dead Kill Book 2: The Ridge Of Change”. He has also published four collections of horror short stories; “Thirteen Deadly Endings”, “Ghost Shadows”, “Undead Living” and most recently “Malaformed Realities Vol. 1”. He has also published a book of often-strange single panel cartoons called “Yes I Smelled It Too; Cartoons For The Slightly Off Center”. All of his books are published through Sunbury Press.(www.Sunburypress.com).

In addition, many of the more than one hundred short stories Thomas has written have appeared in dozens of short story Anthologies and e-magazines. Some have been produced and presented for internet podcasts as well. Thomas is best known for the twists and surprises in his stories and his descriptive often gory passages have given him the reputation of being one who paints with words. Thomas is also an artist, musician, singer and songwriter.

Praise for “Burner”:
Thomas Malafarina has a visual artist’s eye for detail and exuberance for the minutiae of his deceptively simple scenes. He writes with the same flourish for violence and tableaus of flesh as Clive Barker and yet he shares the same cosmic vision and torment of inner and outer space of H. P. Lovecraft, all the while working the clichés and conventions of the genre bravely and unabashedly. All in all, “Burner” is one hell of a rollicking horror house ride. — George Andrade Horror News

READING, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released Burner, Thomas Malafarina’s supernatural thriller about the thing(s) on the other end of the line.

About the Book:
Charles Wilson has left home in rural Pennsylvania for the most important sales call of his career when he realizes on the way to the airport that he has forgotten his cell phone; his lifeline to the business world with over a thousand contacts stored in its memory banks, Wilson’s cell phone has radically transformed him as a businessman and has changed the way that he conducts business since before such a device had entered his rather simple life and now he can’t live without it. In fact, “nowadays if he was without his cell phone for even as little as an hour, Wilson felt completely cut off from the rest of the world, a world that provided him with a substantial income.” Charles decides that since he has most of his contacts stored upon his laptop the best thing to do would be to have his wife overnight the phone to his hotel and in the interim he would look to purchase a “burn phone” – street vernacular for a pre-paid cellular phone. Unfortunately, luck does not seem to be on Wilson’s side as all of the kiosks are closed at the airport and when he arrives at his hotel it is too late to make such a purchase. Charles is frustrated and berates himself for his foolishness when he is directed down a dark street (an alley, really) that runs along the side of the hotel by a strange man sitting in the lobby – perhaps the fates will favor him after all and he will find what he is looking for? And so begins Charles Wilson’s hellish journey, and thus begins “Burner”, a novel of Lovecraftian horror and cosmic menace by Thomas M. Malafarina.

About the Author:
Thomas M. Malafarina (www.ThomasMMalafarina.com) is an author of horror fiction from Berks County, Pennsylvania. To date he has published six horror novels “What Waits Beneath”, “Burner”, “Eye Contact” , “Fallen Stones”, “Dead Kill Book 1: The Ridge of Death” and “Dead Kill Book 2: The Ridge Of Change”. He has also published four collections of horror short stories; “Thirteen Deadly Endings”, “Ghost Shadows”, “Undead Living” and most recently “Malaformed Realities Vol. 1”. He has also published a book of often-strange single panel cartoons called “Yes I Smelled It Too; Cartoons For The Slightly Off Center”. All of his books are published through Sunbury Press.(www.Sunburypress.com).

In addition, many of the more than one hundred short stories Thomas has written have appeared in dozens of short story Anthologies and e-magazines. Some have been produced and presented for internet podcasts as well. Thomas is best known for the twists and surprises in his stories and his descriptive often gory passages have given him the reputation of being one who paints with words. Thomas is also an artist, musician, singer and songwriter.

Praise:
Thomas Malafarina has a visual artist’s eye for detail and exuberance for the minutiae of his deceptively simple scenes. He writes with the same flourish for violence and tableaus of flesh as Clive Barker and yet he shares the same cosmic vision and torment of inner and outer space of H. P. Lovecraft, all the while working the clichés and conventions of the genre bravely and unabashedly. All in all, “Burner” is one hell of a rollicking horror house ride. — George Andrade Horror News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sunbury Press has released Kyle Alexander Romine’s debut novel The Keeper of the Crows, a super-natural thriller.

No evil can remain buried forever, as disgraced journalist Thomas Brooks discovers when a wave of death grips the rural Kentucky town of Gray Hollow in terror.

Following a very public humiliation, Thomas is looking for a story to get him back on the map—and free of the small town newspaper where he serves out his exile. The apparent murder of a stranger seems to be just what the opportunistic reporter needs, until he discovers the death is merely the start of something bigger.

Also investigating the murder is Sheriff Jezebel Woods, who doesn’t approve of Thomas’ sensationalist intentions. Mounting deaths force the pair to set aside their differences to confront a force that threatens to destroy the entire town.

At the center of the mystery is the disappearance of a boy named Salem Alistair, who designed a series of grotesque scarecrows for his parents’ farm—scarecrows that are turning up at each subsequent crime scene. Thomas begins to doubt his uneasy alliance with the sheriff when he realizes Jezebel has her own secret history with Salem Alistair.

Thomas and Jezebel are completely unprepared to face the supernatural force at odds with Gray Hollow. As the killings continue, and the town slowly begins to yield its dark secrets, the truth will pit Thomas and Jezebel on a collision course with true evil.

EXCERPT:
… Jeff hastily brought the aluminum can up to his lips and choked down the frothy liquid.

“Ugh,” he grunted. It was warm. The vehicle bounced over the gravel rocks, causing him to spill the remainder of the beer on his jacket. “Stupid truck,” he muttered as he glanced at the gas gauge. There was barely enough fuel to get back into town. Jeff hurled the empty can down on the floorboard and brought the vehicle to a halt. A rusty metal gate barred his entry to the farm. Jeff almost laughed when he saw the locks fastened around the wooden post.

Like anyone would want to break in here, he thought.

The sun waned above, casting an orange glow on the farm. An old barn stood nearly twenty feet beyond the fence. Like his truck, the barn’s red paint was faded, and planks of rotten wood contributed to a general state of disarray. A cornfield rested just outside the barn, with a small grassy hill overlooking the whole property. Jeff grabbed a cooler from the back of his truck and hoisted it over the gate adjoining the wooden fence. A wave of reluctance washed across him when he rested his hands on the cold metal. After hesitating, Jeff shook his head and yielded to the silent calling that prompted his return to the abandoned farm. It wasn’t like anyone was going to find him out here. The farm lay deserted since the last member of the Alistair family passed away almost twenty years ago. The government now owned the property. All the while the Alistair farm lingered in limbo, waiting. Waiting for him.

“Here goes nothing,” Jeff said before he began climbing over the fence. A blast of freezing wind sent a chill through him, but it was too late to turn back now. He trudged through thick piles of multi-hued leaves. Dusk was fast approaching over the October horizon. Jeff stared into the thick rows of corn. He remembered all too well what secret lay hidden within. That the corn would still be growing in an ordered pattern after all these years disturbed him for some reason. He caughtanother chill, this one not from the cool breeze.

The government probably planted them, he thought. Even as the words formed in his head, Jeff found the probability unlikely. He didn’t understand why the town would waste money by planting corn in an abandoned field. As he rounded the corner, Jeff spotted a dark figure in the cornfield. He nearly jumped out of his skin before realizing the figure wasn’t human. A stitched amalgamation of cloth and straw hung from a pole that towered above the rows.

“It’s just a scarecrow,” he said to himself, letting out a sigh of relief.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kyle Alexander Romines is a teller of tales from the hills of Kentucky. He enjoys good reads, thunderstorms, and anything edible. The Keeper of the Crows is his first published book. His writing interests include fantasy, science fiction, horror, and western.

Kyle’s lifelong love of books began with childhood bedtime stories and was fostered by his parents and teachers. He grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes, RL Stine’s Goosebumps series, and Harry Potter. His current list of favorites includes Justin Cronin’s The Passage, Hard Country by Michael McGarrity, and Red Rising by Pierce Brown. The library is his friend.

Kyle discovered a passion for writing after graduating high school, which resulted in the completion of three novel length manuscripts before The Keeper of the Crows. These fledgling attempts at writing taught him a great deal, and since writing Keeper he has worked to continue honing his skills. He hopes to continue writing as long as he has stories to tell.

About the Book:History tells us that on October 3, 1849 the great master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe, was found wandering the streets of Baltimore, Maryland delirious and in grave distress. He was taken immediately to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7. Poe never became coherent enough to explain how he wound up in such an abysmal condition. There are a lot of theories about his death but no concrete evidence. Maybe he simply lost his way back from those incredibly dark places his writing took him.

Thomas Malafarina can only hope that his own numerous journeys into that land of darkness will not someday take its toll on him. “I would hate to think of myself thirty years from now in some home for the aged and infirm, cowering in bed with the covers tucked tightly to my chin. Would I be too afraid to leave the safety of my covers because the demons, which once only lived inside my mind, had since become as real to me as flesh and bone in my addled condition? I suppose we will have to wait and see,” mused Thomas.

In the meantime, please enjoy yet another journey into the darkest corners of Thomas Malafarina’s mind. This collection is calledMalaformed Realities, not just as a clever play on his last name, but because distorting and twisting reality into something it was never intended to be is what he enjoys doing best. “And if in the process, I manage to disturb and frighten you along the way then all the better.”

Stories included in this volume:

When They Come For You

A Love Best Served Cold

MegaSynth RP-1

Brass

Inspector 17

Hear No Evil

Big Frankie

Dinner With Andy And Meg

Cold, Cold Women

If Thine Eye Offend Thee

Homecoming

Passageways To Perniciousness

Storage

Cutaneous Horns

Icehouse

Single Panel

The Brands

Breathe

Tools Of The Trade

Zombie Party

And The Scales Fell From My Eyes (A Novella)

Excerpt:Cold, Cold Women
She had been the love of his life, the reason for his very existence. In fact, Dylan had considered her the warmest and most affectionate woman he had ever met. In his past, so many cold, cold women had hurt him so many times before taking all the love he had to give and then tossing him aside like so much garbage.

After years of dealing with this rejection Dylan had become wise to such deceitful women. He had experienced enough pain. He found he was never able give fully of himself in any relationship. He knew to watch for the signs. When he saw a woman turning cold, he would end it before he could be hurt again. After a while, he had begun to wonder if he would never find a truly caring woman.

Then he met Celia. She was everything he wanted in a woman and more. She was warm, compassionate and loving. She was the one woman who could break down the protective walls Dylan had built around himself. She taught him to give fully of himself once again without fear or concern and she had made his life complete—at least for a time.

But then he sensed that she too was beginning to grow distant and cold, just like the rest of them. These damned cold, cold women. She didn’t think he noticed, but he did. He knew the signs. After a time he realized she was no different than the others and soon she too would leave him. He was furious that he had allowed her to get so close to him, to break through his defenses, to get him to open up to her. Why had he been such a fool?

Now she lay quietly next to him in bed, her cold dead corpse growing stiff with rigor mortis. Her neck bore the blackened bruises from strangulation—her eyes bloodshot with petechial hemorrhaging. He was certain he could smell the stench of decay already forming about her and only after a few hours.

Life had made Dylan wise. He had ended it before she could hurt him any more than she already had. Why had she grown so cold? He didn’t know, but it really didn’t matter. Now she too would be buried in his back yard along with the many others who had tried to hurt Dylan. She had once been special but now she would become just another of the dozens of the cold, cold women now resting in the cold, cold ground.

About the Author:Thomas M. Malafarina is a horror fiction author from the South Heidelberg Twp area of Berks County, Pennsylvania. He was born July 23, 1955 in Ashland, Schuylkill County, PA where he lived until moving to Berks County in 1979.

Many of Thomas’s stories take place in his native Schuylkill County and also in Berks County settings. Thomas’s books are published by Sunbury Press of Camp Hill, PA.

Thomas’s novels include “99 Souls”, “Burn Phone” and “Eye Contact”, “Fallen Stones”, and the “Dead Kill” series. His short story collection are “13 Nasty Endings”, “Gallery of Horror”, “Malafarina Maleficarum Volume 1″, “Malafarina Maleficarum Volume 2″, “Ghost Shadows”, and “Malaformed Realities”. He also has a collection of single-panel cartoons called “Yes I Smelled It Too”. In addition, Thomas’s stories appear in many anthologies currently on sale on Amazon.

Thomas has had a life-long love of the horror and monster genre in all its form of books, movies and art. Annually, Thomas creates works of horror art, props and scenery, which he donates to a local non-profit Halloween Barn Of Terror.

Thomas lives just outside of Wernersville, PA with his wife JoAnne. They have three grown children and three grandchildren.

WERNERSVILLE, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released Thomas M. Malafarina’s latest novel The Ridge of Death,the first book of the Dead Kill series.

About the book:

Horror master Thomas Malafarina is back with the first book of his Dead Kill series entitled The Ridge of Death. Enter a post-apocalyptic world where zombies still roam, but are the quarry of bounty hunters who are rewarded by the government for helping with the “clean-up.”

What Others Are Saying:

“Thomas Malafarina writes with a visual artist’s eye for detail and design and revels in the same exuberant flourishes for violence and tableaus of flesh as Clive Barker, all the while working the clichés and conventions of the horror genre bravely and unabashedly. Though he has created his own King-like milieu in and around his native Schuylkill County (PA), Malafarina shares Lovecraft’s cosmic vision and torment of inner and outer space and he designs philosophically laden set pieces that thoroughly dissect the minutia of man as if he were just another sentient being in a violent and insatiable cosmos (and a clumsy one at that), a doomed soul wracked with mental anguish and ripe for the picking from the evils of the universe, just another chapter in an ancient taxonomy. Tom’s novels continue to grow in scope and ambition – he is a veritable talent to watch (and read)!” —George Andrade – Horror News

“Thomas M. Malafarina is the kind of writer I aspire to be. Like a visionary painter, creates mood in the landscape of dread, strong emotions with characters you care for, and suspense that causes a reader’s nails to dig deep into their own legs. Stories cut from a cloth of originality that is Thomas M. Malafarina.” — Mark Slade – Nightmare Illustrated Magazine

“Malafarina’s vision into a world where zombies are nearly eradicated is fresh and savagely satisfying, making this a must read.” — Keith Rommel – Author of “The Cursed Man”

Excerpt:

Jackson stepped out onto the roadway with his gun still at the ready. He looked around to make sure there were no other such creatures lurking about, and then cautiously approached the fallen beast. Most of its face and skull had been annihilated. For a moment he thought he saw the thing move slightly and considered blowing off the rest of it head. Instead he kicked it hard several times to see if there was any sign of movement. There was none. It would never rise up again. Covering his mouth and nose to avoid the ungodly stench surrounding the wretched thing, Jackson reached down and sunk the spear end of the rod deep into its shoulder, which was now the highest point on the thing’s body, making the flag as visible as possible.

As the point of the spear sunk deep into the rotting flesh with a sickening sound, Jackson pulled away quickly and was hit by an involuntary shudder which started at the top of his head and rapidly shot right through his body to the tips of his toes. He stood there on the side of the road slightly bent over with his both hands extended, palms down barely able to hold onto his gun, knees bent and legs trembling. “Oh my God! I hate these freaking dead things,” Jackson said with a shudder in his voice. He was so glad he was alone and no one had witnessed his ridiculous involuntary reaction.

Unfortunately, this was something that had to be done in accordance with government mandated regulations. He looked over and saw he was a few feet from mile marker 25.4. Taking a deep breath to regain his composure, Jackson withdrew his communications unit, or CU, as they were commonly called, and snapped a photo of the creature with his flag and digital code clearly displayed. He also made sure to get the mile marker sign in the photo for reference.

Walking cautiously back to his car, ever vigilant for not just other such creatures but also for possible approaching cars, rare as they may be, Jackson climbed behind the driver’s seat, started his engine, and closed all of his windows. Holding his CU, Jackson selected the required communication number from his list and after hearing the digital preprogrammed greeting, he left his message, “This is Jackson Ridge, citizen number 132-78-5498. I’d like to report a dead kill on the southbound lanes of Route 61 at mile marker 25.4. I have placed my digital code identification tag into the remains in accordance with regulation DK5479-38. I’m sending a digital image as confirmation of the dead kill. Please forward payment to my account on record. And do not hesitate to call me if you have any additional questions. Thank you.”

Then he disconnected, put his car in gear, and continued down the highway to his new writing assignment. One hundred dollars would be transferred into his bank account before the day was over…